Brew Review – Azimuth from Cigar City Brewing and Coronado Brewing

Not the beer, of course. I can describe a session IPA. How do I describe an ‘azimuth?’

How about this: An azimuth is a measure of distance in a sphere based on a central point and how far it deviates from a straight path. It’s sorta kinda like when you say something is at 2 or 3 ‘o clock? In essence, the azimuth is the distance on a curve between the direction you’re facing and the direction of the thing you’re pointing to. Sort of.

Cigar City and Coronado do a lot of collaborations together, even though they’re on opposite coasts. Apparently this recipe came about as a celebration trip sailing in the Caribbean. Because when brewers go sailing, naturally, a beer results.

It must have been a good trip, though. Thank you so much for the fact this is a session IPA, so it’s nowhere near as strong and hoppy as a normal IPA. It’s really light and very clean when you pour it out of the bottle. The crisp, light aroma is definitely refreshing.

According to the bottle, the brewers used a mix of American and New Zealand hops for this beer. Whatever hops they used, they’re fantastic. It’s light, with a bit taste of citrus and zest, little floral notes and a muted bitterness. It’s wonderfully fresh-tasting, almost like a fruit punch of hops. I would like to know a little more about the New Zealand hops, since I’ve seen a lot of wines, especially whites like my beloved Sauvignon Blanc, from New Zealand are delightfully fruity and tasty. They sure do grow good stuff there.

I’m happy the fact this is an IPA didn’t scare me away. It was a fantastic, light, not-very-brutal IPA. Well worth another sailing trip to the Caribbean.